Years After Shutting Down, File-sharing Site LimeWire To Relaunch As An NFT Marketplace

Back in 2010, file-sharing website LimeWire shut down after an extensive battle with the Recording Industry Association of America after allegations of music piracy were filed against it, and according to a federal judge, the platform was guilty of copyright infringement on a huge scale.

The file-sharing platform is ready for a comeback and this time it is doing it on a bigger scale as it isn’t coming back as a file-sharing website. LimeWire, which was one of the most popular file-sharing websites based on a peer-to-peer system was taken over by subscription-based services like Netflix and Spotify, which became widespread in such a short time.

LimeWire is coming back, but this time as a Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) marketplace. NFTs are digital tokens, much like Bitcoin or Ethereum, and this means that it is collectable digital asset, which holds value as a form of cryptocurrency and as a form of art or culture.

This May, LimeWire will be relaunching as a marketplace for NFTs. The intellectual property and assets of the platform were acquired by Australian brothers Paul and Julian Zehetmayr and for some time now, they’ve been planning on relaunching the platform.

While it will no longer be powering file-sharing services, the revamped platform will still continue to focus on music allowing users to buy and trade rate musical items such as limited editions, unreleased demos and digital merchandise.

The platform which will be introducing a more accessible approach to NFTs will list its prices in US dollars rather than crypto. Users will have the ability to make payments using their credit cards, and LimeWire has partnered with Wyre for its payment functionality. LimeWire’s advisory board includes the manager of the rap group Wu-Tang Clan – Tareef Michael.

Speaking on LimeWire’s relaunch, Julian Zehetmayr said that “The issue with NFT market is that most platforms are decentralized. If you look at Bitcoin, all the exchanges are making it really easy to buy, trade and sell Bitcoin. There’s no one really doing the same in the NFT space. We’ve obviously got this great mainstream brand that everybody’s nostalgic about. We thought we needed to build a real mainstream user experience as well.”